Unusual deaths compel a psychologist to delve into the mystery of an ancient demon haunting people with sleep paralysis.

Synopsis:

Sophie Wynsfield wakes to find her mother Helena screaming at her to not look at Sophie’s father Matthew, who lies dead in his bed with a twisted body. Presuming Helena killed her husband, Detective Mike McCarthy summons psychologist Dr. Kate Fuller to the crime scene to assess Helena’s mental state.

Helena later explains that Matthew suffered from sleep paralysis and a demon called Mara climbed on his chest to kill him. At McCarthy’s urging, Kate has Helena committed to the Barnard Institute. Kate is present when orderlies forcibly separate Helena from her distraught daughter.

Kate has a brief bout of sleep paralysis during which she sees Mara in her apartment.

A clue from the Wynsfield residence leads Kate to the home of Hideo Takahashi. Kate finds Takahashi dead in his bed. McCarthy agrees that Takahashi’s death appears similar to Matthew Wynsfield’s, but insists that Kate leave the case alone.

Kate visits Helena at the mental hospital. Helena recounts how she took her husband, who had trouble sleeping, to a support group run by Dr. Ellis, which is where they met Takahashi and Dougie. Matthew’s sleep paralysis began shortly thereafter. Helena shows Kate redness in her eye that supposedly signifies Mara has marked Helena for death too.

Kate attends Dr. Ellis’ next group therapy session. As patients recount various instances of sleep paralysis, Dougie warns Saul Conlon that Saul is in the final stage of the curse and will die the next time he falls asleep. Rather than risk another Mara encounter, Saul later immolates himself in front of a church.

Kate has another bout of sleep paralysis and briefly sees Mara again.

Based on what Kate told him about the incident at the group meeting, McCarthy arrests Dougie for Saul’s death. Dougie claims that Takahashi was the first to see Mara. After the demon started haunting Dougie as well, the two men did research and found that Mara has been killing people in their sleep for centuries. Dougie shows Kate his red eye, which he confirms as meaning Mara has marked him for death. McCarthy is forced to release Dougie due to a lack of physical evidence.

Based on his new suspicion that Dougie actually murdered Matthew, McCarthy orders Helena’s release. Kate goes to the mental hospital to find Helena’s dead body twisted in her bed.

Kate experiences sleep paralysis while in the bathtub and sees Mara once more. Kate discovers that her eye has the red mark.

Kate visits Dougie. Dougie explains more about Mara’s history. Dougie claims that Mara manifests after significant tragedies, although neither of them know what caused Mara to appear now.

Kate consults Dr. Ellis. Ellis says that sleep paralysis is not fatal and visions are merely influenced by contemporary culture.

Kate has a nightmare involving Sophie and Helena. Kate wakes to Mara climbing on top of her paralyzed body.

Kate calls Sophie’s grandfather to ask after Sophie. Sophie’s grandfather explains that she is now suffering from nightmares.

Dougie’s generator fails, disabling the alarm clocks that only allow him to sleep for 20 minutes at a time. Realizing that his extended slumber put him in Mara’s final stage, Dougie calls Kate for help. Kate arrives after Dougie cuts off his eyelid.

Kate brings Dougie to Ellis’ clinic for overnight evaluation. Dougie tells Kate about a traumatic experience from his time in the military. Kate falls asleep in the room with Dougie.

While Ellis and his assistant Carly are distracted, Mara manifests and twists Dougie’s neck while he sleeps. Mara moves to kill Kate next, but Ellis rushes into the room and wakes her.

Kate goes to see Sophie in the hospital and learns that she now sees Mara too. Kate warns that Sophie cannot fall asleep. Sophie’s grandfather tells Kate to leave immediately.

Kate goes through all of the collected materials related to Mara. Kate connects that each victim blamed himself or herself for something unfortunate, usually someone else’s death. Kate also concludes that Takahashi’s involvement in an incident that killed 38 children overseas was the tragedy that summoned Mara.

Kate calls McCarthy with her conclusion that Mara is drawn to guilt. Kate explains that she feels guilty for mistakenly having Helena committed. Kate adds that to save Sophie, she must absolve the girl of her guilt over talking to Kate, which Sophie believes led to the death of her mother.

A vision causes Kate to crash on her drive to see Sophie. Kate flees from a waking vision of Mara on the ferry to the hospital.

Kate arrives at the hospital just as Mara appears in Sophie’s bed. Kate explains that Helena’s death was not Sophie’s fault and wakes the girl in time to make Mara disappear.

McCarthy wakes Kate the following morning. Initially believing the situation resolved, Kate discovers she is actually asleep and having a nightmare. Helena screams that Kate will never be forgiven. Mara creeps toward Kate and suddenly lunges at her.

Review:

Like “The Man in the Shadows” (review here), “Dead Awake” (review here), “Be Afraid” (review here), and countless others before it, “Mara” supports the hypothesis that there just isn’t a truly frightening thriller to be mined out of sleep paralysis. At the very least, nobody has made one yet.

According to statistics displayed at the start of the film, 40% of the world’s population suffers from the phenomenon, with two-thirds of that number describing attacks from a demonic entity too. No doubt, experiencing such vivid encounters in reality sounds terrifying. Fictionalized as an umpteenth scene of a dark figure creeping atop a motionless person however, the concept’s inherent visual sluggishness translates into ho-hum horror of average at best quality. Exhibit A: “Mara.”

When an insomniac’s broken body puts his wife in the hot seat for homicide, Detective McCarthy summons psychologist Kate Fuller to assess the suspect’s mental state. Mother and daughter both claim a sleep demon named Mara murdered the man. McCarthy insists mom is loony tunes, compelling Kate to have her ripped away from her distraught daughter and institutionalized.

Kate of course can’t leave well enough alone. Delving deeper into this ‘Mara’ mystery, Kate finds an entire group of sleep paralysis sufferers who’ve also seen the evil entity. One of the group’s members, Dougie, conveniently offers all of the demonic details on Mara, who supposedly dates back centuries as a supernatural murderer plaguing nightmares on a global scale.

Kate soon experiences sleep paralysis for herself over three consecutive nights. Despite seeing Mara all three times, finding footprints on her floor, noticing a burst blood vessel in her eye said to be Mara’s mark of death, learning of a man so fearful that he set himself on fire, finding another person’s shriveled corpse twisted in his bed, and watching video footage of a dark figure sitting atop yet another victim who died in her sleep, Kate still isn’t completely convinced of Dougie’s crackpot claims about Mara. Kate will have to get her sleep-deprived head in the game though, if she wants to find out what makes Mara tick before anyone else, particularly her, suffers the demon’s dreamscape death touch.

“Mara” supports a second hypothesis regularly proven by indie features with more above-the-line names than actors listed in their poster art credits block. Yes, it takes a village to raise funds and to put together a production of any size. But when a movie cites eight people as producers and eight more as executive producers, there are too many cooks in the creative decision kitchen, lending a likely explanation for why “Mara” stirs a blandly flavorless soup in need of original salt.

“Typical” is the only adjective needed for describing any element in the movie. A montage of juice mixing and jogging introduces Kate, a standard single female protagonist whose empathic dedication to her work is balanced by decompressing with a glass of wine and a bath. If her tub had a level lip, the set decorator certainly would have dressed it with candles.

Actress Olga Kurylenko, likely directed to do so, portrays Kate typically. When Kate finds the second of two dead bodies she stumbles onto, Kurylenko widens her eyes and brings her hands to her mouth while slinking to the floor in disheartened shock. “Mara” adds another mile to the moment by switching to slow motion and raising the volume on operatic aah-aah-aahing over the scene. These are typical techniques for artificially inflating emotion that ”Mara” resorts to more than once.

Mara herself also sprouts from flattened fiction. Some noise exists in her scant backstory concerning how many eras and countries she has haunted. But there’s no background related to Mara that isn’t more about miscellaneous sleep paralysis encounters. Not having even an inkling of Mara’s who, what, or why dries out the demon into a husk of interchangeable horror.

If a film doesn’t tie its terror tale to an exclusive entity, how does it make a unique impression? You can’t have “A Nightmare on Elm Street” without Freddy Krueger. You can have “Mara” with Chuck, Sally, or any ordinary ghost you choose.

Craig Conway squeezes the most juice out of “Mara” as Dougie. Conway’s embodiment of an unhinged Tom Sizemore adds heat to a cast of clichéd characters. His intensity boils over into borderline campiness on occasion. Yet Conway’s tendency to exaggerate is preferable to the movie’s contentedness to stay under the speed limit on every other road.

“Routine” doesn’t automatically equate to “bad.” Neither does “forgettable.” Aside from a squirm-worthy eyelid snipping that earns a thumbs up for standing out, “Mara’s” mediocrity merely prevents it from being memorable, even among its equally unimpressive peers in the sleep paralysis subgenre.